Middle East|Dozens Dead in Eastern Syria After Clashes with Islamic State

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Dozens Dead in Eastern Syria After Clashes with Islamic State

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American-backed Syrian fighters last month in village of Sousa, which was recaptured by Islamic State militants on Saturday.CreditCreditDelil Souleiman/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

By The Associated Press

Oct. 27, 2018

Islamic State militants killed at least 40 Syrian fighters backed by the United States, captured several alive and regained areas they lost earlier this month in eastern Syria near the Iraqi border in some of the most intense fighting in weeks, a war monitor and an agency linked to the extremist group reported on Saturday.

Members of the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, have been on the offensive since early September under the cover of airstrikes by the American-led coalition to capture the last pocket held by the Islamic State in Syria.

Friday’s fighting lasted until the early hours of Saturday began when Islamic State militants, taking advantage of a sandstorm, launched a counteroffensive against the Syrian Democratic Forces in the eastern province of Deir el-Zour that borders Iraq, activists said.

Colonel Sean Ryan, spokesman for the American-led coalition, said they have no confirmation of exact figures “as both sides are taking casualties.” He called it a “difficult fight.”

“The sandstorm allowed an ISIS counterattack, which was surprising given the conditions, but now the air is clear and the Coalition will continue to increase air and fire support to assist our partners,” Col. Ryan said using a the acronym to refer to the extremist group.

Rami Abdurrahman who heads the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that since Friday, Islamic State militants have killed more than 60 fighters from the Syrian Defense Forces, wounded others and captured at least 20. He added that some fighters fled the battlefield as the Islamic State carried out suicide car bomb attacks.

The Observatory and the Deir Ezzor 24 activist collective said Islamic State fighters captured the village of Sousa, an area they had lost control of earlier this week.

The ISIS-linked Amaq news agency said that more than 40 fighters were killed and posted a video of six gunmen captured alive.

An SDF official did not immediately respond to inquiries sent by The Associated Press.

The Observatory said that the fighting continued until early Saturday and gunmen attacked SDF positions on the eastern banks of the Euphrates River in east Syria.

The last pocket held by IS in Syria is home to thousands of civilians caught in the crossfire.

Brett McGurk, the White House envoy for the war against the Islamic State, told a conference in Bahrain on Saturday that “the military mission in Syria is the enduring defeat of ISIS.” He said he expected IS would be defeated over the coming months.

“It is very difficult because we are in the last stages, where almost every ISIS fighter is in a suicide belt,” Mr. McGurk said. “It’s very difficult fighting but we will get it done.”

On Saturday, a summit on Syria attended by the leaders of Russia, Germany, France and Turkey began in Istanbul. The four issued a joint statement agreeing that there could be no military solution to the war.

Syria’s civil war, which began as a popular uprising and then dissolved into a fractured and complex conflict, has raged for more than seven years, shattering the country, leaving hundreds of thousands dead and millions displaced.

Last week, United Nations humanitarian official, Jan Egeland said in Geneva that some 15,000-people including Islamic State fighters and their families live in the area.

“A lot of civilians there are being attacked from all sides,” Mr. Egeland said.

Mr. McGurk said that the United States and the SDF are holding some 700 foreign fighters in Syria, adding that they are determined that “these people cannot get out of Syria to threaten our homelands or yours.” He said the coalition is working with some countries to make sure that “we could try to repatriate these people.”

While the process is underway, Mr. McGurk added, the United States is working to ensure that they are housed in a facility inside Syria that meets international standards “so that these people cannot commingle and repeat any of the problems that we’ve seen in the past.”

SDF spokesman Kino Gabriel told the Kurdish ANHA news agency on Friday that an international tribunal should be set up to try the foreign Islamic State fighters his group is holding. He said that the SDF has apprehended more than 700 non-Syrian Islamic State fighters in addition to their families.